Oregon City police investigate hate crime vandalism

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OREGON CITY, Ore. -- One look at all four slashed tires on Kyle Bragg's pickup, and you know something's very wrong.

“Especially for this to happen in the Portland metro area is very shocking to me,” said Bragg.

Bragg’s slashed tires are the third vandalism to his pickup truck that’s parked in front of his Oregon City home.

The first incident happened a week-and-a-half ago, after he'd put his garbage can on the street to be picked up in the morning.

"They had taken a whole bag of garbage out of our garbage can and emptied the contents into the back of my truck,” Bragg said.

The next night, someone keyed the pickup's door with a derogatory word.

Bragg has an LGBT equality sticker on the pickup's window.

“Clearly this is being targeted based on the fact that I'm gay,” said Bragg.

Bragg bought a surveillance camera system, with a motion sensor, hoping to catch whoever's targeting his property. It paid off Sunday night.

One camera catches a man, wearing a grey hoodie, a tan Carhartt jacket and jeans, as he walks between Bragg's house and the pickup. Another camera shows a man casually bend down and stab one tire and then stab another before walking away. The vandal apparently had already slashed the truck's two other tires.

Bragg heard the camera warning go off, saw the man slash the tire and ran after him. The man was yelling as Bragg ran after him.

“Mainly just like slurs at us like 'oh, kill you' blah, blah, blah,” Bragg said.

Bragg worries whoever's willing to do this, could do worse.

"That's basically what we're really concerned about,” Bragg said. “Who knows what else is gonna happen? Is he gonna drive by and throw a brick through the front of our house or something else?”

The man involved is white, about 6-feet tall with short hair. Police are treating the vandalism as a hate crime. As of Monday night, they didn’t have any suspects.